Petrified Forest, Day 8, October 3, 2010

This was our day off, a day which I intended to be so lazy that I would awake at 10, take 3 naps, and be in bed before 8.

Good luck!

I woke up as the sky was lightening, but closed my eyes fiercely against the temptation. Then I opened them again as the sky was definitely light. Jer got up. I got up. It was actually about 6:30 AM, a bit later than our usual rushed teeth brushing  at 5:45 AM — but definitely was not sleeping in. As I have noted, the desert has a way of making you actually want to get up early.

I took a nice long walk between 7 and 8 (Jer was on Wikipedia as I left; weekends have freed up the internet). When I returned to the complex, I got a (free) cup of coffee from the café next to the Visitors’ Center and circled the entire Neutra-designed complex. I am fascinated by the culture of the Park Service, the ways it changed over the years, and how the PF exemplifies some, but of course not all, of the changes.

This is a very large complex, meant to house families, a school, a community center. It has bigger houses and small apartments and trailer sites, all placed inside walls meant to provide privacy and respite from the wind for the residents. We are here in off-season (albeit not off-off season) and it feels very quiet and deserted. Families no longer live here and the school has been converted to a research and preparator center.

Yet, in spite of the seemingly deserted environs, this evening, a number of people dropped by — the artist liaison, Todd, Alex, the Navajo cook, Amy, the other artist in residence, and Kenny, the lizard guy, as Alex calls him, the scientist in charge of critters in the park (he removes snakes to safer quarters) as well as someone who helps prepare specimens of dead critters for research and display. It was a fun gathering, although I felt enormously old at the end of it when I had to admit to needing dinner and a rest.

I did take a nap, mid-afternoon. I did put out my paintings to discover what I need yet to do. I put down papers on the patio and laid out the paintings, along with blanks, and then made notes about where and what I should do in the next five days.

The blank boards are the paintings yet to be done: two 12 by 12 inch pieces, three 12 x 24 inch (two of them vertical), and one vertical 12 x 16 inch work. Formidable but doable.  Everyone loves the car (to my despair, since it’s my least favorite type of painting), I think because it’s both graphic and wonky. Jer think the large horizontal (top center) lacks focus, but Amy liked it. And mostly everything else is acceptable. I did tweak a couple of paintings (between naps and eating junior mints) but am not as disparaging about most of the paintings as I was when I did them. Two of the paintings got turned to the wall (i.e. to be recycled) and one has to be recycled because I need a different 12 x 12″  scene. But that’s not bad — 3 out of 14 rejections. I had feared much worse as I went to bed each night.

Of course, I’m looking at these things flat on the ground with ants crawling over them (I can’t complain — the ants were here first). If I were in Portland, Oregon, imagining my critique groups casting their eyes over them, I might be more critical. If they were vertical, on a wall space, I might regain my despair. But it’s good to feel good about what’s happened thus far — I haven’t enough time to really get discouraged.

At any rate, I see that I need 6 more paintings to fill out the rectangle. As I said: 5.5 days more to go — doable.

I’ve been asked about the housing. We are in a “row” apartment (radical for the Park Service in the 1960’s), but the one next to us is being renovated and a walkway is on the other side. It’s eerily quiet. And very comfortable.

Here’s our living/dining/office room (the frig, sink, and stove are behind the photographer):

The kitchen table has been converted into the computer center and we move the books so we can eat at the coffee table.  Hey– we have our priorities.

Here’s my back “patio” studio, which works nicely in this late September/ early October weather — enclosed against the wind, with house walls (behind the photographer) to prop paintings on, and a picnic table to do all the painterly prep stuff. We may even sit out there and eat peanuts and drink wine one of these evenings:

For those of you interested in Park Service architecture and/or Richard Neutra’s ideas for the Petrified Forest and how they were carried out, check out this URL; it’s a gem.

In many ways, I think of this complex as interesting as the Puerco Puebloan cultural material; architecturally it has historical impact and culturally it speaks to our understanding of the ways in which our culture lives.

Enough of the pop culture. My thought about art today was that many artists, like my compadre, Amy, think hard, sketch, ruminate, and then do the art that arises from the thinking. The plein air artist (moi, moi), however, paints first, thinks about what she has painted and wonders what it means, and then comes up with the thoughts to accompany the paintings. This is inefficient, for sure. But fun. –June